I write all text in my own custom font, which only i can read. I cant barely read other cursive cyrillic text.

Obligatory лишишь ("you will deprive"). Cyrillic cursive really is wild

Damn, these look kinda fun...

I feel like at least the example here is very legible. What I can not do is read Sütterlin, a historic form of German handwriting script. The text in this postcard is German, which is my native language. Except for some very simple words like "wir" or "mit", I cannot read this.

You: the existence of the subway is actually a lie to make Russia look strong to the west.

Bob: oh damn

You: we aren't allowed to talk about it in English. The birds are microphones.

The "???" suggests they didn't get the joke. Like come on, not even a sarcastic "very funny, 2/5"?

Same score but an LOL instead of ???

Back in middle school history, they wanted to know who the UK Prime Minister was during WWI, and I couldn't remember so I wrote down James Bond, and got half credit for making the teacher laugh.

in college calc classes, my handwriting was famously quite poor. I'd scribble down some illegible notes and formulas, draw a few pictures illustrating the problem, then come up with a random answer. most of my classes graded work, not correct answers, so if I had an inkling of the right way to do it I could fake it and usually get at least 75% credit for the question.

always hated the questions that make you use the answer from previous questions. always a good time when you get to the end and have a nonsensical answer and have to redo 4 pages to find where you forgot to carry a 1.

On our German tests back in hs, there was a vocab section where we'd use words in sentences. I didn't know one of the words in one of the tests, so I wrote "ich weiß nicht was bedeutet", which means "I don't know what means". Our teacher accepted that one with a laugh, but said it was a one time thing and it would not be allowed again. People still tried their luck with similar tricks after that, but got nothing.

Me, I was just surprised she'd never seen that in her career before. I wasn't expecting to get any points for that. Thought she for sure would have had other smartass students like me.

Very much how it is in Québec which is unfortunate as someone trying yo better my French

Languages come in tiers. English is the global lingua franca. People use it to speak to anyone, no matter whether English native speaker or not. If someone from Norway wants to talk to someone from Japan, they'll most likely use English since both of them likely speak it.

Then there's regional lingua francas, languages like Spanish, Russian or Mandarin. These languages are popular in specific parts of the world and often used to get around there. Someone from Ukraine can speak to someone from Belarus using Russian.

Lastly, there's local languages that are spoken only in a country (or even only a part of a country). People speak them because that's what they were grown up with.

So in general, there's 4 "language slots" of languages people speak:

• The global lingua franca
• The regional lingua franca
• The language of the country they live in
• The language they grew up with

One language can fill multiple slots.

So for example, if you grew up in Ukraine and moved to Germany, you might speak the following languages, according to the slots above:

• English
• Russian
• German
• Ukranian

If you are born in Wales and never moved away, it might look like this:

• English
• English
• English
• Welsh

If you spent your life in the US, it would be like this:

• English
• English
• English
• English

This is the reason why people living in countries with lower-tier languages frequently speak 3-4 languages, while English native speakers really struggle to even learn the basics of one additional language. Because the former group has an actual use for more than one language, while the latter one don't.

Source? I think speaking one language is pretty rare. Most Europeans speak at least two, most Africans I've met speak 3, lots of Indians speak 3 as well...

I think anyone in India and Africa speaks 4 languages easily.

1. their regional language (i.e. Masaai, Yoruba, Xhosa)
2. the over-regional language (Arabic, Swahili)
3. a coloniser language (English, French)
4. and possibly just enough of a neighbouring regional language

I think many Chinese people are also bilingual (i.e. Wu+ always mandarin). They often learn another language in school (English or something geographically closer, like Korean).

You: Of course! Go via metro around the corner.

Bob: Thank you for your help, friend!

You: Nothing of it! (but I don't know what that last word "удамй" means)

It's around the corner

Thanks friend

You're welcome